Five Very Stupid Things Some Adults Do When Trying To Talk To Teens

Like most people, I spend hours every day desperately hoping a teenager will tell me I’m cool. It has never happened to me before, but god willing, it will one day soon.

I think it becomes more likely as I get older.

As a side effect of this, I have spent a lot of time thinking about teens and studying them and muttering while creepily watching them from afar. Experience that has made me more or less an expert on their ways. I thought I’d share some of what I know with you, knowing how mysterious they remain to many adults. Here then, for your conversing pleasure, are five important tips to remember when talking to teens.

#5. Don’t Try To Talk Like Them

The first thing to remember is that you should never, under any circumstances, attempt to talk like teens do themselves. This is something adults forget all the time.

Teens invent new words. It’s one of the only things they can do, really; we’re not going to let them run a bank or drive a crane or anything. And that’s fine — they can have their new words. But just because they use them doesn’t mean you need to when talking to them. They understand regular words too.

They might not listen to them, but they understand them.

Worse, their boss new words are going to sound terrible coming from you, even if you get the meaning and tone and context and all that exactly right. Words mean different things when they come from different people. A simple compliment — “Nice shirt” — is embarrassing when it comes from our parents, appreciated when it comes from our friends, terrific when it comes from our crushes, and potentially sarcastic when it comes from our enemies.

Why is she being nice to me? I smell treachery.

So when you, the gross non-teen, uses their slang, it just sounds wrong because of your gross non-teenness. Worse, if you’re correctly using teenage slang that means you have studied it, which is just about the lamest thing anyone has ever done.

So what should you do? Talk to them like an adult. This is a pretty safe play, because teens want to be adults, due to how shitty being a teenager is. They won’t necessarily respect or listen to you …

“WOMP WOMP WOMP. WAHM wah WAM WAMP WAMP.”

… but at least talking to them this way won’t actively insult them or embarrass you.

#4. Don’t Remind Them That You Were Young Once Too

Yes, you were their age once. And yes, you know what they’re going through. And yes, you made all the mistakes they’re about to make. And goddammit, if they would just listen and accept your wisdom, they might just make a better life for themselves. It’s a great theory, and has just one problem.

You’re old and you suck.

Coolness is subjective; it’s entirely in the eyes of the beholder. If you see someone who does things you want to do and hangs out with people you want to hang out with, that person is cool in your eyes. Which means that, as a non-teen whose body is visibly decomposing, you probably aren’t cool in a teen’s eyes. You don’t hang out with people they want to hang out with, or do things they want to do, or have things they want to have. You might have a car, but that’s about it. More importantly, this is all a present-tense calculation; things you did in the past don’t count. And even if you tried doing cool things today, as is the case with slang, you’re limited by age appropriateness considerations.

Past a certain age, about 31 or so, it becomes less cool to smoke behind the gym.

Also, no you don’t know exactly what they’re going through. There are big differences between now and when you were that age. Hell, there are big differences between now and 10 years ago. Remember when kids weren’t supposed to post pictures or talk about their personal lives online? A teen trying to avoid that these days would be pecked to death by their peers.

And not only is your life advice unwelcome and inaccurate, it’s also potentially counterproductive. Because …

#3. We Shouldn’t Tell Them Anything

Teens don’t just want to figure stuff out on their own, they need to. It’s a necessary part of growing up; when you’re an adult, you have to figure things out on your own all the time.

Which sucks.

This is a big reason why teens seem to tune out adults, even when we have really smart things to say. Studies have shown that all our efforts to educate teens about the risks they take with drugs and alcohol and unprotected sex don’t seem to change their behavior at all. As soon as the school assembly is over, the damn fools rush out to the parking lot to engage in risky behavior like siphoning MDMA off each other’s gonads.

Or levitating dangerously into the air.

So let them figure things out on their own. If you have something to say to a teen, don’t just say it with words, like some kind of asshole. Lay out an elaborate system of riddles and clues that they have to decipher. They’ll tune you out if you try to sit them down at a kitchen table, but they will never forget the madcap dash they made across the country, piecing together a cipher that lead them to a dusty tomb and a weathered scroll that read “ALWAYS WEAR A CONDOM.”

#2. In Fact, Just Never Be Friendly To Them At All

Although teens do need support structures and caring families, their desire to figure things out on their own will make them very suspicious of people “trying to help.” Which is why smiling or making any other gesture that bares your teeth is a very aggressive gesture for most teens. They’re likely to respond to it with their own displays of aggression or, counterintuitively, exaggerated cowardice.

A traditional display of passivity.

The best posture to speak with a teen is the same you’d adopt when dealing with a strange dog. Avoid direct eye contact and look to the side of their head. Keep your hands open and in plain sight. Make sure to discard any loose bits of meat you have on your person prior to the conversation. Finally, instead of smiling, cover your teeth with your lips, making an O shape with your mouth.

Teens will respect and admire anyone who approaches them in this manner.

Then, using adult language with no current slang, provide no advice, guidance, kind words, or anything that makes literal sense. Just moan a riddle about dinner or something.

Finally and most importantly …

#1. Always Sit Down In A Chair Backwards

Any time you want to converse with a teen or group of teens (a “murder”) you should always sit down in a chair backwards, straddling it.

But without the teeth, you maniac.

This is a classic move that is widely, if not always, misinterpreted. It is not, as is widely believed, meant to make you look cool. No cool person has ever sat in a chair like this (the coolest way to sit in a chair involves landing in a recliner pretty hard so that its footrest comes up, flipping sunglasses perfectly onto your face). No, this is simply a defensive measure, putting a hard object between you in case the teen attacks.

No, Chortson! Control yourself!

Because teenagers are trying to figure things out for themselves, and, uh, hormones, and probably video games too, they’re basically always just seconds away from violence. And as their bodies are young and supple, like coiled springs, any conversation with a teen is a potentially deadly one. This is why for generations now professional teen-handlers have always sat in chairs this way, keeping their feet flat on the floor with a shield in front of them to defend themselves from teens’ vicious, snapping beaks.

And that’s it. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll be able to have safe, meaningful conversations with teenagers, and you will soon realize why most people never bother.

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